Page 3382 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 20 August 2008
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
operation over many years from scratch. They developed a business competency in recycling that had not previously existed. They get little reassurance and little acknowledgement of that from a government that says they supposedly communicated in all respects with Revolve. Really, the view around the community is that there was little done to give Revolve a chance.
This was a company that had put in so much and developed a capability. Okay, put aside for a moment the fact that they had a number of issues to answer for in relation to the way that they were administering their practices. They certainly had debts which they owed the government. There was no way, of course, that you could have dismissed those particular debts. I do not believe there was enough done to give one of the few recycling companies we have in the ACT an opportunity to redeem itself.
Let us have a look at the record in respect of the no waste by 2010 program. This is a government that have banged on for some years and said that they were moving to a no waste objective by 2010. They used, for example, that clarion call as the reason for removing garbage tins in a number of areas. They took other initiatives which have not necessarily worked in the community’s favour under the banner of no waste by 2010.
Let us have a look at the record. Let us look at even the government’s own budget figures. In 1994-95 the tonnage of waste going to landfill was 272,000 tonnes. By 2001, that had been reduced to 220,000 tonnes. A reduction of 50,000 tonnes was achieved over those seven years. That is a pretty substantial reduction.
What have we seen in performance terms since 2001-02? The tonnage was 207,000 in 2002-03. According to the budget papers, that has been reduced in 2006-07 to 197,000 tonnes. There has been a 10,000-tonne reduction in the last seven years. For the first seven years we see a 50,000-tonne reduction. In the following seven years, we see a 10,000-tonne reduction. Work it out for yourself. That was 20 per cent of the performance rate of the previous period. What we have seen under this government is a 400 per cent reduction in performance in reducing the tonnages going to landfill.
What about the percentage of waste going to landfill? From 1994-95 to 2001-02, the percentage of tonnage reduced from 67 per cent to 36 per cent. In other words, the amount of waste to landfill halved. It halved in that period of time. What have we seen in the life of this government? What has been the performance reduction? It has been a lousy eight per cent. This government has been asleep at the wheel.
What we see is that the 2010 performance graph has flatlined. It has flatlined like this government’s health policy, perhaps. What is the answer to that? We see the government in the budget this year allocating $850,000 to seek an expansion of landfill. That is it.
The major initiative is to spend more money to expand landfill. Where are there in the budget any initiatives or meaningful dollars allocated to seek imaginative practices to recycle versus landfill? There is not very much there at all. Where in the budget is any meaningful contribution to analysing the biomass or putrescibles recycling? We do not see it. What we see instead is a tunnel vision or visionless approach of looking for more ACT territory dirt to dig up and to continue with the landfill initiative.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .